Ryanair is awarded $282,000 by U.S. court after Twitter bomb threat

US Court ruling over Twitter threat welcomed

Ryanair today (14 July) welcomed a United States District Court ruling against an anonymous Twitter user who posted a bomb threat last year.

Ryanair obtained a number of subpoenas from Twitter, which helped identify Brian Lake from Pennsylvania as the person responsible for posting the threat in February 2016, using the handle @GunnexGod.

The tweet read, “Hello @Ryanair, you have 15 minutes before I commit the biggest terror attack the UK has ever seen on one of your planes. Be ready”. Ryanair filed extortion and defamation proceedings in the US earlier this year.

The US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania this week ruled in Ryanair’s favour and awarded $284,148 in damages (including punitive damages). Ryanair welcomed the ruling and reiterated that it will not allow any individual or group to threaten or impugn its industry leading safety record.

Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said:

We welcome this US District Court ruling. The safety of our customers, people and aircraft is our number one priority and we will not allow anyone to impugn, threaten or undermine our 32-year unblemished safety record and will pursue any ‘anonymous’ social media offenders through the courts.